Thoughts on my judging future

Yesterday I had some nice chats with some fellow trans* magic judges. It’s nice to know there are more of us in the program.

I talked with them about some of my ambitions as a Magic judge to leverage my position and experience to broaden the diversity of the game and of the judge program, but I always come across the same stumbling blocks of what to actually do. I mean, it’s great to say “Hey, Magic should be a safe space,” but how do you actually go about making that happen?

I’ve been holding seminars on the subject, and I have a blog that I update irregularly, but that all seems so little. I want to be out there, helping the trans* magic players who might be having trouble, showing TOs why it’s important everyone feels welcome, explaining to players why saying things like “that’s gay” hurts not only others around them, but themselves as well, but, like, how do I do that? How do I make my voice heard? I just don’t know, and that frustrates me.

I also want to start working towards level 3. I posted that on Facebook, and I think some people took that to mean “okay, I’m ready for L3 now”, but that’s not what I meant at all. I know I need a lot more experience, and I need to work on a lot of parts of my personality and character that are L3 qualities that I just don’t have yet. But what I meant was, I want to start improving myself so that someday, hopefully soon, I will be ready for L3. I know I have the potential, and now I have the drive too. If nothing else, I hope my being L3 will help with the visibility of women and trans* folk in the program.

Once I figure out what exactly I can do to forward my goals of diversity in Magic, that project can also be something I use to demonstrate my readiness to go the the next level. But I still need to figure out just what that will be.